


In Five Years Time

by Idday



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Use, Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 13:44:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2549708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idday/pseuds/Idday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years down the line, and it’s not supposed to be like this.</p><p>It’s not supposed to be Stiles here, swaying on the doorstep of Derek’s new, suburban home. It’s not supposed to be him smiling blearily at Derek, who’s already in pajama pants with freshly brushed teeth, it’s not supposed to be Stiles saying, “Heyyyy,” all slurred out, and it’s not supposed to be Derek who doesn’t even sigh before helping Stiles inside, before walking him up the stairs and pulling his shoes off once he’s got Stiles draped over the guest room bed, it’s not supposed to be Derek who leaves a glass of water and two aspirin and a note on the bedside table before shutting off the lights.</p><p>(These are the things that Derek knows:</p><p>He knows that Stiles came back to Beacon Hills a year ago with a degree in his hand and a messy, broken relationship in his past and a nasty substance problem he picked up along the way.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Five Years Time

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so once again, I should be working on my like five long wips that I have for this pairing, but I was sitting in class the other day and went, but what if it's been five years and even though everybody thought that Stiles should go on and do great things, it's actually Derek who's got his life together and Stiles is struggling because life just happens. The substance thing just sort of happened later I guess? I really don't even know.
> 
> Trigger warnings for drug and alcohol use and abuse, and alcoholism and drug addiction. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE take care of yourself and do not read this if that sounds not good for you. I will be happy to add more tags/trigger warnings if you think I should even though I've tried to cover my bases, please just let me know. Also rated mature for the drug/alcohol thing, not for anything more fun unfortunately (i.e. sex).
> 
> Also eventual happy ending because apparently all I am capable of right now is writing angsty Sterek with a happy ending because I can't bear to see them unhappy and it's a problem.
> 
> This is totally unbetaed and I literally wrote this in like two hours, so apologies for typos, etc. because even though I've done some proofreading myself there are bound to be some.
> 
> Disclaimer because I own nothing and am making no money and also know almost nothing about drugs? So call any inaccuracies artistic license, I guess, even though I did some research for sure.
> 
> As always, please review and let me know what you're thinking, thank you so much for reading, and enjoy!

Five years down the line, and it’s not supposed to be like this.

It’s not supposed to be Stiles here, swaying on the doorstep of Derek’s new, suburban home. It’s not supposed to be him smiling blearily at Derek, who’s already in pajama pants with freshly brushed teeth, it’s not supposed to be Stiles saying, “Heyyyy,” all slurred out, and it’s not supposed to be Derek who doesn’t even sigh before helping Stiles inside, before walking him up the stairs and pulling his shoes off once he’s got Stiles draped over the guest room bed, it’s not supposed to be Derek who leaves a glass of water and two aspirin and a note on the bedside table before shutting off the lights.

It’s not supposed to happen for the third time this week.

But it’s Derek who has to actually buy over the counter pain killers—something he’s never done before—and it’s Derek’s guest room that smells of no guest except Stiles and it’s Derek that can’t lay awake worrying anymore, not after the first four times, because it’s Derek that has work in the morning.

And it’s Stiles a room over, passed out in someone else’s bed, snoring with vodka breath and dulled senses.

It’s Stiles that does it over and over.

…

These are the things that Derek knows:

He knows that Stiles came back to Beacon Hills a year ago with a degree in his hand and a messy, broken relationship in his past and a nasty substance problem he picked up along the way.

He knows, from the Sheriff, who works only one office over, that there had been a job, or maybe an internship; that there had been a first month’s rent in a cheap but tidy apartment with a boyfriend; that three weeks before the end of the school year, it had all fallen apart.

It had been a, _“We cannot apologize profusely enough, Mr. Stilinski, but these things do happen, and we no longer have an open position at this company,”_ followed by—and this, he knows from Scott, because when they do talk, it’s only ever about Stiles—a bender unlike any which even Stiles, who had over his four years at school familiarized himself with any and every mind altering substance Derek had ever heard of and probably some extras, too, had ever been on. It had been a, _“I can’t live like this anymore, Stiles, you out all the time, high out of your mind, or else just wasted, just absolutely smashed, and it’s just not fair to me, besides being dangerous for you, and we’ve been together for two years now but if it won’t stop—and it won’t stop, you know it won’t—I just can’t live like this, it’s not college anymore and it’s not healthy, not for you and not for me,”_ and a drunken late night phone call to his father, and then it had been Stiles, smiling at Derek in the freezer aisle of the grocery store, smiling as if nothing had happened with the stink of two-day-old booze seeping from every pore.

And now it’s Stiles, blacked out in Derek’s spare room.

…

It’s the same story in the morning, when Derek sees Stiles breathing but passed out, still unmoving from last night.

It’s the same in the station, when Derek nods to the Sheriff, who, once he knows Stiles is safe, drops his head in such defeat that Derek has to look away.

It’ll be the same when he gets home to find nothing but a freshly made bed, and it’ll be the same three nights from now, when Stiles shows up on his doorstep again.

…

Derek doesn’t know how this all started—about the pills or the powders or the plastic baggies and the green weed or about the shining bottles all filled with freedom.

He doesn’t know who it first was who pressed any (all) of this into Stiles’ hand and said, _“Come on, it’ll be fun.”_ He doesn’t know if it was the first night or the first week or the first year, but he does know that Stiles, that first summer, was in, and in deep.

(He knows that, back then, they had all laughed it off, because what college kid _doesn’t_ smoke and drink, or even try something harder, from time to time? And Stiles is _smart,_ Stiles has _a future,_ and Stiles knows that it’s trouble, if you like it too much, but Stiles is just having a bit of fun, letting go a little, and after high school, who could really blame him? And those kids on TV, those college kids and those horrible words that float around _(overdoseoverdose)_ , well Stiles is just not like them. And Derek knows that he won’t forgive himself, not now, for having said, four years ago, that _this will pass._ )

He doesn’t know why it’s him that Stiles comes to, over and over, until he remembers that he’s the only person Stiles knows here anymore.

He doesn’t know, not until later, about the bottles of whiskey under the front sink in the Stilinski household, about the seventh grade boy who got drunk and sick and hated his father for it, and he doesn’t know until he looks it up about the tendency of addiction to run in families.

And though he knows that the Sheriff knows, he doesn’t know why he does _nothing_ to stop it.

(Derek doesn’t know why he, himself, doesn’t either.)

_(He doesn’t know why he never sends Stiles away.)_

…

It’s not how it was supposed to happen, after all.

It should have been the other way round, maybe—Stiles with a house and a job and a Friday night poker game, Derek showing up on his doorstep a mess, over and over, silently pleading for someone to help him out of this hole he’s been digging.

But here they are, and Derek has a badge and a gun and Stiles has a bottle of whiskey.

…

It’s a whiskey night, because Stiles is pensive and a little mournful, and aware enough to pull away from Derek and get himself into the kitchen, where he parks himself at the table and sighs.

Vodka hits him hard—makes him loud and rambunctious and just as quickly knocks him flat out.

It was a tequila night, Derek thinks, the one time that Stiles smiled up at him with bourbon eyes and a cocaine-white smile and pulled Derek down for a kiss, the one time that Derek pushed him gently away _(notlikethisnotagain)_ and Stiles pouted and moaned and rubbed himself on Derek’s thigh, regardless.

And sometimes it’s extra, too, the stench of skunky weed or the blown out pupils that imply something a little less legal.

But whiskey is Stiles’ favorite, because it’s warm and smoky and lulls him into drunkenness just subtly enough for the melancholy to blindside him just as he steps into Derek’s home.

“It’s this fucking town,” Stiles tells Derek, once he’s trailed after him into the dark kitchen. It’s later than ususal—2:30 AM, the oven says—and Derek had given up waiting for Stiles just in case an hour ago, and had just drifted off when the doorbell had rung. “It just sucks you back, over and over, and you can never really leave.”

“It’s not the town,” Derek says, less gently than he has the three times before now when they’ve had this conversation, and he puts a glass of water in front of Stiles, and makes him drink it, and puts him to bed.

It’s how the whiskey nights go.

…

He knows that Stiles goes to the bars, sometimes, comes to Derek stinking of sex and someone else’s scent.

He knows that Stiles drinks at home, when the Sheriff works, because it comes cheaper in bottles _(because they don’t sell anything harder than liquor, in the bars)._

He doesn’t know how Stiles, jobless and living with his father, is supporting this habit.

_(He knows how much it hurts, to watch him kill himself slowly.)_

…

It’s been a bad night for Derek, a long day at work, and then a funny scene in the grocery store that makes him turn automatically to check for Laura’s expression—but it’s been seven years, and Laura’s not there.

He finishes his shopping feeling quiet and gloomy, missing his pack like he does some nights, buys himself a case of beer and a pint of ice cream, though he knows neither will help.

He’s in his uniform, still, when Stiles rings the doorbell this time, too early, and Derek opens the door to find him black-eyed and propped against the wall, breathing shallowly.

There’s a key ring dangling from his finger and a blue jeep parked in the driveway, and Derek grits his teeth because—

Stiles has never driven before. He’ll take a cab from the bar, he’ll walk a few blocks (and Derek can’t decide whether it’s ironic that the house he buys is only a few blocks from the Sheriff’s), but Stiles has _never driven like this before,_ at least not on Derek’s watch, but it’s just.

It’s just too much.

Because Derek’s been good to him, at least as far as he knows how, but Derek’s also an officer of the law, and besides, if Stiles hurt someone like this, Derek would never forgive himself for it.

So he doesn’t invite Stiles in, tonight. He takes the keys from his hand, he takes the cuffs from his belt, and he puts Stiles under arrest.

But it’s the thought of the look on the Sheriff’s face that shakes him to the core, that makes him, just as he opens the back door of the cruiser, change course abruptly, makes him walk Stiles up the stairs and to the guest room, makes him tuck Stiles’ keys into his own pocket and leave, Stiles right wrist cuffed to the belt loop on his own jeans so that he probably can’t even get up in this state, with no arms to balance, and certainly can’t go anywhere.

But it doesn’t matter, because he’ll pass out, in just a few minutes.

And then, trying to forget the things that Stiles had said to him on that walk up the stairs _(he’ll never forget, he’ll never forgive himself)_ he drives over to the Sheriff’s house.

And when the Sheriff, sleepy and rumpled and annoyed, opens the door—then, Derek tells him exactly where his son is.

…

They sit at the kitchen table together, the two of them, Derek in official beige and Stiles’ father (not the Sheriff, a father) in sleep pants, and they both stare into their own tumblers of whiskey.

They don’t talk, for a while, but when they do, it’s because they worry about Stiles—both of them—and they won’t see this happen to Stiles—neither of them—and because, yes, they love Stiles.

Both of them.

_(It’s been a long time, Derek keeping that secret, even from himself, but it’s been five years, and he still loves Stiles. Has tried to stop, has tried to deny, has watched Stiles fall in and out of love and in an out of the bottle and he shouldn’t love Stiles, but. He does.)_

And when they’ve agreed, Derek helps Stiles’ father up from the table and up to bed _(google search: does alcoholism run in families)_ and then drives himself home and stands in the doorway of his own spare room, and watches Stiles sleep.

Derek doesn’t sleep that night.

Because it’s the last time.

…

Derek had hoped that it would be enough, waking up in handcuffs, the memory of an almost-arrest fresh in even a drunken mind.

But he sees Stiles leaving the grocery store the next day, hides behind his car so Stiles doesn’t see him and watches as he carries two grocery bags filled only with plastic bottles out to his car.

…

Stiles comes to him again—a Tequila night, lust in his eyes and sex on his fingers—and drawls, “Hey,” but not drunkenly, just.

Stiles licks his lips, and smiles into Derek’s eyes.

(And maybe that’s why Stiles came here in the first place, that first time, could sense Derek’s weakness for him, his want for him, and was looking for a good hard fuck. Maybe Derek surprised him with gentle hands and a glass of water and a bed for the night. Maybe that’s why he came back to Derek like he never does to the others he wants to (has) fucked.

_Maybe Derek imagines it, from time to time. Stiles in Derek’s bed, pliant and finally willing and—but it’s the thought of the taste of the booze that would be on his tongue that makes Derek stop, every single time. Because he wants Stiles, wants him in a fierce way that’s new to him, that makes him clench his fists and breathe harshly. But he wants Stiles—fierce, defiant, strong—not this coked-out boy with a lecherous smile._

_And Derek’s waited and wanted and wished for five years, now. It’s an old, familiar feeling.)_

“Stiles,” Derek says, and shakes his head.

“Derek,” Stiles coos, vowels soft and stretched, reaching in to kiss him, but Derek moves him gently away, still shaking his head. “Come on,” Stiles says softly, batting eyelashes and a bitten lip, “Derek, come on. I know you want me. I know you find me attractive. I see it in your eyes. And I want you, so badly. Just let me. Just let—”

And Stiles tries again, and it almost breaks Derek, the way he whispers, “ _I want,”_ But Derek takes his shoulder and steers him back down the driveway to the cruiser and sits him in the passenger seat, and says, “Let me drive you home.”

Because it’s what they’ve agreed, him and Stiles’ father—that the Sheriff will have the talk with Stiles, as many times that it takes, and that Derek will always bring him home.

“You can’t,” Derek says, when they’ve pulled up in front of Stiles’ childhood home, ignoring Stiles’ hurt look and the hand on his thigh, “You can’t come to me anymore, Stiles. It’s. It’s not fair to me, okay? I’m trying so hard, I’m doing well, but I’ll always say yes to you. You know that. But you can’t anymore, not when you’re like this. The minute—the _second_ —you need help, you want out, I’ll be here. But not when you’re like this. I can’t say yes anymore.”

And Derek doesn’t miss the shuttered eyes, the hard set jaw, the way Stiles yanks away as Derek walks him to the door. And it hurts, though Derek knows it’s right.

Because he wants to be everything to Stiles. Everything but an enabler.

And Stiles says, “I don’t need help,” Right before pushing inside.

And Derek drives himself back home, and eats that entire pint of ice cream.

…

It’s a week later, and though the Sheriff looks more haggard every day, Derek’s doorstep remains empty.

It’s a week later, and Derek wonders if they did the right thing—if they should have sent him somewhere, to someone; if they should have done more.

It’s a week later when Derek gets the phone call.

…

He wears his uniform to the hospital, because people tend to give cops whatever they want.

In this case, what he wants is immediate entry into Stiles’ room, and some answers.

And it’s all just.

It’s an overdose and a pumped stomach and the fact that _nobody knows what he took tonight._

It’s Stiles laying there unconscious, looking small and pale despite the fact that “ _The procedure went well, Deputy Hale, once he wakes up he should be just fine.”_

It’s the fact that Derek has to call the Sheriff—Stiles’ father—and inform him that his son is laying, still and death-like, in a hospital bed.

And it’s the fact that Stiles opens his eyes before his father arrives, takes one look at Derek, and starts to cry.

…

It’s two days later when Stiles appears on his doorstep, looking pale and drawn and ashamed.

“I’m going away for a few months,” He says, “I don’t really know how long.” He stumbles over the word ‘rehab.’

He looks at his feet when he says, “Getting arrested by my—by you, that should have been a low point, right? But waking up the other night… I mean, the hospital was bad enough. But seeing you sitting there, looking like… Well. That was a low point. They say you have to hit rock bottom, right? That. Your face, in that moment. That was rock bottom.”

And Derek doesn’t know what to say to that, really. ‘ _I love you’_  feels selfish and wrong and true. So he says “Good luck,” instead, and tells Stiles another truth—that he’s the strongest person that Derek has ever known.

And he watches Stiles walk away.

…

It’s four months and five days and Derek gets a dog.

It’s Stiles reappearing on his doorstep, pulling Derek into a hug as soon as the front door opens.

It’s Stiles smelling of nothing but _newfreshclean_ and _healthy_ and no trace of anything headier.

So Derek invites him in, for a lemonade, or a soda, and Stiles meets the dog, who has been named, until this moment, only Dog.

Stiles names her Luna.

Derek laughs.

…

Six years down the line, and it’s not supposed to be like this.

It’s not supposed to be a warm body in Derek’s bed, a speckled arm thrown over his chest, a sex-messy head shoved up snug under his chin.

It’s not supposed to be a happy mutt panting up at him adoringly as he fills her bowl, like he’s the best thing she’s seen all day.

It’s not supposed to be Stiles thumping into the kitchen all lively and lovely, clutching the dog’s head between his big hands and cooing, “My Moon and Stars,” to Luna as he does every morning, as she wets his entire face with her big pink tongue as she does every morning, sliding his arms around Derek’s chest from behind, pulling him into a kiss that’s softsweet _slow_ but smells of dog and saying, as he does every morning, “Hey, babe.”

It’s not supposed to be like this.

But it is.

…

_(Ten years down the line, and it’s not supposed to be like this._

_It’s not supposed to be Stiles’ father clapping him on the back when Derek asks._

_It’s not supposed to be Derek kneeling here in their kitchen with no one around to see, the both of them in pajama pants as Luna prances around them, delirious with second-hand excitement and absolutely in the way._

_It’s not supposed to be Stiles saying, “Yes.”)_

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr,](http://iddayidnight.tumblr.com/) if that's what you're into. I cry a lot about Derek and his boyfriend.


End file.
